We were lucky to catch up with Kim Langley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kim, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I may not be mission driven in the traditional understanding of that term. A business, any business, at the basic level is about making money. I wanted a business that would make money for me but would also provide a market for quality wool from small producers. I also wanted to use woolen mills in the Midwest. My goal was to focus on Fibershed (broadly defined as a days drive from my location). My mission is to source local wool and have it processed locally. The product, a high quality yarn, is sold at fiber festivals in the Midwest. Money spent in the community, supports the growth of the community. That is my mission. I see the sheep, I prep the wool. I can tell you the story. When someone buys yarn from me, they know the money is going to real people; the young man raising sheep on the family farm while attending veterinary school, the retired high school teacher raising Shetland sheep in northern Wisconsin, the two girls sitting on the steps waiting for me to arrive. This is my mission. I am now in my fourth year of this business. I have driven a lot of county roads. Have skirted fleece in many cold barns. And have talked to more than one farmer who is just so happy that someone actually wants to buy the wool and make something with it. And I will come back the following year and if I can, I will pay more for the wool. We can all rise.

Kim, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I learned to knit when I was nine or ten but I did not become passionate, even obsessive about knitting until I was working a high stress job and commuting on the bus. Knitting socks helped me transition between job and home, it is very meditative! The housing crisis in 2008 meant a job change. I ended up opening a yarn store on South King Street (Honolulu). I was the Yarn Lady for several years. That is when I became more interested in yarn. Life happens and I am in Wisconsin. I hear about a woolen mill that is for sale. I shadow the owner and at the end of the day I said, “I can’t buy the mill, but you need help, why don’t you hire me for a few days a week?” She did.

I learned to skirt and clean the fleeces of the custom jobs that were to be processed into yarn. I learned so much about wool. I realized that I could tell the difference between fleeces as I skirted them. The wool felt different. I began to focus on the breeds and what was different. I would volunteer at fleece shows so that I could listen to the judge and ask questions as she reviewed each fleece. I learned about breed standard, crimp and staple. I worked off and on at the mill for five years. I began creating my own yarns without much of a plan. There was a bale of Cormo available, I bought part of it and had it spun into yarn. The mill owner heard about Polypay fleeces being given away. I did a run of Polypay yarn.

While working part-time at the mill, I decided to venture into wholesale. My yarn store on Oahu had carried a yarn made in New Zealand that was not available in the Midwest, and I was able to negotiate a distribution contract and import the yarn from New Zealand, which I then sold wholesale to local yarn stores in the Midwest and online to consumers. Things were going okay, and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. New Zealand shut down. The problems caused by being dependent on imported products became obvious.

It was an awakening for me. I did a lot of thinking about what was most important to me. Having grown up on a farm in Iowa, it was important for me to focus on my environment and my fibershed, which I define as a days drive, but can also be a larger region. I wanted my business to be local and support local producers. I inventoried my skills, from my background in business (financial analysis, budget control and management) to what I’d learned recently about wool and sheep breeds. I had learned how to determine the quality of grease wool, or wool that was recently sheared but is unwashed and full of lanolin and dirt. The Midwest does not have flocks comprising thousands of sheep like those found in western states. The Midwest has lots of small family farms, and while the flocks may be smaller, there are more of them. I needed to be able to provide a consistent market and pay farmers a fair price. I decided that I would differentiate my business by focusing on breed-specific yarns produced with wool from flocks registered with state and national breed associations. I was confident I could create a high quality yarn that would sell.

There was a time, decades ago, that farmers could sell their sheared wool and earn enough to cover the costs and make a profit. That time is over. Wool prices have only gone down (currently around 10 cents a pound) so farmers with small flocks are making their money selling lambs for meat and wool is a side issue. When I look through bags of grease wool after driving for hours over miles of county roads and determine that the quality is good, the farmer and I settle on the price per pound. I am honest with the farmers, and I tell them that if the wool produces a good, solid yarn, I will be back next year and I will pay more.

My motivation is simple. When you buy yarn from me, you are affecting the lives of real people. These people include two little girls who waited on the steps of a farmhouse in northern Wisconsin and greeted me when I drove up and then ran to get their mother, shouting that the wool lady was there to look at the fleece. There is the guy in his twenties who raises sheep on his family’s farm while attending veterinary school. I can tell you where all the wool comes from, who raised the flock, and the steps that were taken to create the yarn you hold in your hand. I pay farmers a dollar a pound when I am not even certain the wool will produce a good yarn. I have farmers that I pay more per pound because the wool is clean and I have produced solid yarn from the flock in the past. I am building relationships with farmers and providing a consistent market for their wool. This is my motivation.

Breed specific yarns are a niche within the yarn market. That is a strength. Few people are producing breed specific yarns focused on their fibershed. Being able to vend at small and large shows in the Midwest, and especially at New York Sheep & Wool Festival (NYSWF), taught me that my market is out there, I just have to reach it.

Fiber festivals provide opportunities, the first being visibility. Your product is seen by hundreds of people in a single day (NYSWF has a Saturday attendance of over 30,000 people). The second is market research. As the crowds of people walk by, I learn what draws people into my booth. I listen as people discuss the yarn with their companions. I pay attention to what yarns are touched, held, and placed back on the shelf. I keep records of what colors sell best. I have learned that when I have the opportunity to engage with a customer I can explain why a breed of sheep has characteristics that create a yarn with qualities advantageous to knitting certain pieces. And when I add that the sheep were raised by a retired high school math teacher in northern Wisconsin, I sell that yarn. In the three years of attending fiber festivals, I have developed a small but growing following.

At its heart, creating yarn is an agricultural business. When there are droughts or too much rain, it affects the sheep and that affects me. This past spring taught me the importance of primary sources and back up sources. I have been buying Romeldale wool from L. (the veterinary student) since 2022. I planned to buy the 2024 clip and in February I put down a deposit with a mill. In late April, L. called me from the shearing floor and told me his entire clip of Romeldale was weak and of such poor quality that he could not sell it to me. The entire clip would be composted. This was a loss of income for L, and since I did not have another source of Romeldale, it was a break in my supply line.

Creating a stable supply line has been difficult. I am one of the few people buying wool in Wisconsin. I am slowly becoming known as a wool buyer. I network and I make cold calls. This year I am increasing the amount of wool I am purchasing, which means higher Mill costs. This will put me closer to my goal of having enough stock and a consistent supply line to move into wholesale.

At the end of 2024 I lost my work space. I will admit the last two months of the year were challenging and the budget was impacted, but on January 1 I obtained the lease to an excellent work space with room for expansion and new endeavors.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I am often asked if the yarn came from sheep on my farm. Nope. I do not have a farm. I know a lot about wool but nothing about raising sheep. The second most common question is do I spin the yarn myself. I then explain that the yarn is not handspun, it is commercially spun at a woolen mill.

I had been working at a woolen mill, so I knew the process of spinning wool to yarn. I had been prepping wool for the spinning process at that mill, so I was confident of my ability to prepare wool. The challenge was finding woolen mills that would spin the yarn I wanted to sell. Commercial mills are not all the same. There is a spectrum of spinning machinery, from the Belfast Mini Mill, all of the equipment would fit in a one car garage, to the traditional woolen mill with carders that a mill worker from 1880 would recognize. Huge machines with large drums to card and a rack of spinners to create the ply. And there are woolen mills that fall in between the two extremes. Commercial mills, depending on their equipment, prefer certain qualities in the wool in order to produce the best yarn.

The first thing I learned was that the wait list, the time between when you tell a mill you want to send them wool and when the Mill tells you they are ready to process your wool can be anywhere from six months to a year. Once the Mill receives your wool, it can be two to six months before you receive the finished yarn.

I find mills by word of mouth, often at fiber festivals. When I hear of a new mill I will ask around to find who had wool processed there. I will usually send a small (around 50 pounds) lot of grease wool to be spun into yarn. I tell the mill what I want, number of plies, type of yarn, the put up (number of yarns per skein) and then I compare the yarn I receive with what I ordered. I have had yarn come back from the mill that was not even similar to what I ordered but it was a lovely yarn and I was able to sell it. I have also received yarn back from a mill that was not evenly spun and barely sellable, even at discount. I have sent wool to a mill and received no yarn at all due to the poor quality of the wool.

Over the first two years I sent small orders to seven mills. Five of those mills I now work with on a regular basis. My current learning curve is discovering the best yarn that a particular mill will produce. One mill I use spins fingering weight yarns very well. Which means that it is the type of fingering yarn that I want. She also spins Romeldale exceptionally well. But if I want a worsted weight yarn, I send that wool to a different mill. There is also a mill that does not like to spin Romeldale, but the owner is very receptive to trying new types of yarns, and is willing to do sample runs of new yarns. There is another mill that is not receptive to new ideas. These are all things that I juggle, keeping on the waitlist, deciding what type of yarn I want from a certain wool and which mill will do that job the best.

My biggest struggle is continuing to educate myself on how to judge the quality of wool. It is a constant learning opportunity. I have studied with judges at fleece competitions, learning how the judge determines the quality of a fleece, if it meets breed standard, if there are breaks. It is a learning curve; that first year I purchased wool that did not make yarn. The staple was weak. This causes the wool to break apart on the spinner. The reason usually goes back to the sheep (poor nutrition, change of diet, etc). But what I learned was not to be rushed, to take my time and look at the wool and to look at the sheep. If I am reviewing bags of wool, I reject bags that are open (possibility of moths/insect damage is high). I will pull several staples from different places in the bag, to “ping” for strength, check for breaks and check for amounts of VM (vegetable matter). If I am going to be spending a lot of time skirting hay out of the fleece, the price I will pay goes down. If the fleece is clean, I will pay more per pound because prepping the fleece for the mill takes less time.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Covid 19 was an awakening for me. I did a lot of thinking about what was most important to me. Having grown up on a farm in Iowa, it was important for me to focus on my environment and my fibershed, which I define as a days drive, but can also be a larger region. I wanted my business to be local and support local producers. I inventoried my skills, from my background in business (financial analysis, budget control and management) to what I’d learned recently about wool and sheep breeds. I had learned how to determine the quality of grease wool, or wool that was recently sheared but is unwashed and full of lanolin and dirt. The Midwest does not have flocks comprising thousands of sheep like those found in western states. The Midwest has lots of small family farms, and while the flocks may be smaller, there are more of them. I needed to be able to provide a consistent market and pay farmers a fair price. I decided that I would differentiate my business by focusing on breed-specific yarns produced with wool from flocks registered with state and national breed associations.

I was confident I could create a high quality yarn that would sell, but the question was how would I finance the venture. My foray into importing yarn was cut short by Covid before it could turn a profit. However, my cash flow was reliable; I had a lot of stock that I sold directly to consumers through my website. When I began my yarn store on Oahu, it was under capitalized, but I was able to obtain a steady cash flow, which I reinvested in the business. I turned a profit in year one and in the second year I was able to pay myself. With this in mind, I was confident that if I did not take a salary, used the income from the imported yarns and immediately began selling at fiber festivals to obtain cash flow, I would be able to finance the business with minimal additional investments. It would mean slower growth, but lower risk.

Three years on this has proved true. The festivals provide reliable cash flow. Each year I have purchased larger quantities of wool, paid my mill bills and kept a small reserve to cushion the business from the unexpected: low visitor turnout due to regional flooding led to my first festival with a net loss and mechanical problems on the road made me miss a festival this past spring. These small blows to the business I can withstand. But while slower growth means that my goal of being in wholesale by year three was overly optimistic, I am much closer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.purveyoroffineyarns.com
• Instagram: purveyoroffineyarns
• Facebook: Purveyor of Fine Yarns
• Other: https://skirter.bsky.social

Image Credits

Kimberly A Langley